Pater, Calvin Augustine

Karlstadt as the Father of the Baptist Movements the Emergence of Lay Protestantism

1993 0-7734-9357-3
Presents a revolutionary appraisal of the origins of lay Protestantism in the Radical Reformation. Karlstadt's creative contributions are analysed, and the traditional picture of Karlstadt as an epigone of Luther, challenging his mentor out of spite, are discarded. Among the many surprises this book offers are the highly probably authorship by Karlstadt of most of Felix Mantz's Manifest to the Council of Zurich; the fact that the first Baptists of Zurich financially supported the printing of Karlstadt's treatises on the Lord's Supper, the contacts between Karlstadt and Melchior Hoffman; and finally the contacts between John Smyth and Thomas Murton with Mennonites in Amsterdam. The early history of the Reformation in Estonia, Latvia, and Sweden is newly and radically reinterpreted, and made available in English for the first time. (Reprint)